No to fast track

In this day and age, when many of our citizens have lost faith in the workings of our political system, one must often look to our U.S. Constitution for guidance in dealing with matters of major concern.

So when I hear that yet another “free trade deal” is being negotiated in secret and behind closed doors, I refer back to our guiding document and in Article 1, Section 8, I find the words “The Congress shall have the power … to regulate commerce with foreign nations.”

The newest “deal” is the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It is a document that has been negotiated by corporate interest groups and Wall Street lobbyists for the last 10 years! They were hoping to have this secret deal rubber stamped by our Congress without any amendments — a process called “fast track.”

If our elected members of congress want to relinquish their constitutional obligation to “regulate commerce,” why stay in a job they clearly have no interest in doing? They pretend to have input. But input after the fact is not the same thing as negotiating on behalf of constituents.

Shame on any member of Congress that supports this approach to global economics.

This story was originally published May 19, 2015 at 3:00 AM with the headline "No to fast track."